I believe that the volatility in large corporate payrolls has
increased over the last 30 years. Meaning that the number of
employees in large corporations fluctuates more rapidly today than in
years past. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any data to
support this. If possible I was looking for a conclusive answer to
this question and the data points to support the thesis.

maxwave28-ga,
I'm pretty familiar with the types of corporate and labor statistics,
but I can't think of anything that quite hits the nail on the head for
your question.
Closest I've come are data that show the average length of time that
people have worked for their current employer has dropped over the
past few decades.
For men, the figures have declined from 5.9 years in 1983, to 4.1 years in 2006.
For older workers, the drop is even more dramatic.
Do these numbers get you close to your notion of 'volatility'?
Let me know what you think.
pafalafa-ga

Clarification of Question by
maxwave28-ga
on
27 Nov 2006 08:52 PST

While I appreciate the insight and it does provide tangential support
for my thesis unfortunately it does not directly prove that corporate
employment figures are subject to greater fluctuations.
I am hoping to find specific data that bears out the hypothesis that
large corporations expand and contract their payrolls more frequently
and dramatically than ever before.
thanks,

Fair enough.
The only option I can think of is to pull together actual employee
numbers for large companies and test your hypothesis.
The data are available, though not necessarily complete.
Here's an example for Ford:
Ford
1965 -- 336,841
1970 -- 436,414
1975 -- 464,731
1980 -- 494,579
1985 -- 383,700
1990 thru 1995 -- missing data
1996 -- 346,990
2000 -- 364,550
2005 -- 324,864
For the fee you have offered, I can probably do this for about five or
six companies, as long as you're comfortable with they type of data
I've listed above.
I can also steer you to sources of information so -- should you desire
-- you can put together a larger dataset, with more companies, or with
employee numbers for every year available, rather than every five
years, or both.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
paf

Clarification of Question by
maxwave28-ga
on
28 Nov 2006 20:03 PST

I appreciate the thought but that is not exactly what I am looking
for. I am hoping for something that says something like for American
corporations with X number or more employees the average annual
expansion(contraction) is X% for the years from 1965 through 2006.

I understand what you're after, though I haven't seen any statistics
along those lines.
My thought was that you might want to create it yourself, from the raw
employment data for companies as I presented above.
It would be a fairly tedious undertaking, but if you need it badly
enough, it might be the only option.
paf

Clarification of Question by
maxwave28-ga
on
30 Nov 2006 06:49 PST

I do not want to create a data set myself nor do I want you to create
a data set. I would like a comprehensive or extrapolated data set for
US companies above X number of employees. I was hoping you could find
this information not create it.
Thanks,
Matt

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